Azzam Al-Ahmed, a member of Fatah Central Committee and head of its team to Cairo reconciliation talks with Hamas, said the reports are “just proposals.”

“Fatah and Hamas didn’t endorse them yet,” Al-Ahmad added.

Local Palestinian media reports quoted Abbas as saying that he will discuss with exiled Hamas leader Khaled Mish’al in their upcoming meeting the idea of holding general elections as soon as possible. The reports were referring to presidential, parliamentary and Palestine National Council elections.

Al-Ahmed said that delegations from Fatah and Hamas will hold two meetings to discuss the process of implementing the national reconciliation deal and Abbas’ proposal.

He added that the date of the two meetings will be fixed after Abbas returns from his tour of Arab states.

Meanwhile, a Gaza-based Hamas leader challenged Abbas to test his popularity in the Palestinian street in elections following the swap deal that Hamas signed with Israel releasing over 1,027 Palestinian prisoners in exchange for kidnapped Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit.

“We invite Abu Mazen (Abbas’ nom de guerre) to enter into elections to see the extent of his popularity in the Palestinian street,” Mahmoud Al-Zahhar told the movement’s official newspaper Al-Risalah.

Al-Zahhar, also member of Hamas-dominated Palestinian parliament, rejected criticism that the Shalit deal may have undermined the reconciliation agreement between Hamas and Fatah, which Abbas has said he pursued in order to pave the way for general elections.

According to the Hamas leader, “Abbas disrupted the reconciliation under US pressure for the benefit of September,” referring to the request Abbas submitted to the UN Security Council seeking full membership for a Palestinian state based on pre-1967 borders.

The elections were due in January 2010 but it has been postponed by Palestine Liberation Organization’s Central Council until further notice after Hamas said it will not allow voting in the coastal strip unless differences with Abbas are settled and a reconciliation agreement is reached.

Since then, representatives of the two movements held several meetings abroad but failed to resolve the obstacles blocking its implementation, particularly the formation of an interim government, the obstacle of the new prime minister and the issue of passports.

Abbas wants to retain caretaker Prime Minister Salam Fayyad as the head of the technocratic government.

The interim government would rule the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip and the Fatah-ruled West Bank.

The Palestinian president fears that failure to appoint Fayyad would prompt the US and EU to suspend financial aid to the Palestinians.

He also fears that Israel suspends the transfer of tax revenues to the PA.

Hamas rejected his nomination since it considers Fayyad part of the Palestinian split and nominated its Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh and Jamal Al-Khodari, the head of the Gaza- based Popular Campaign Against the Siege, for the post.